Island Intrigue (22 page)

“I didn't know Rolo very long, or very well,” Sabrina began, turning to face the crowd, and using her carrying voice, the one she used when she spoke in the echoing auditorium, and wanted to make sure the squirming boys in the very back could hear. “But in the short time I knew him before his death, I think Rolo and I made a connection. He told me about his family and talked about his love for his grandmother's roses. We talked, really talked, and if I was able to help him during a difficult time, then I'm glad.”

Sabrina noticed that Sergeant Jimmy McCall was waving a hand at her, and she paused a moment, staring at him in puzzlement. “Rolo Wrightly was a good man,” she continued. “I feel honored that I knew him, even for so short a time.” She turned to the coffin and placed the skillet beside Rolo in the coffin. She felt the tears burning in her eyes, and she wanted to go before she started crying in earnest.

“Thank you all for coming out.” Nettie stood beside the coffin, holding a fishing pole. “All that's left is Shelby's Fishing Pole—”

“Wait,” a voice said from the crowd, and Brad Tittletott stepped forward. “I'd like to say a few words.”

Nettie looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded and stepped back to let him speak.

“Rolo was,” Brad began, and swallowed hard. “Rolo was the best friend I ever had when I was a kid. He showed me what friendship is supposed to be. I wanted to say—“

“You have no right,” Thierry cried, pushing to the front of the crowd. “You have no right to act as if you cared about my brother when you killed him!” He pulled out a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Brad. “I won't miss this time. Blood for blood, Brad! You're going to die for killing a Wrightly!”

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Thierry Roland Wrightly, you put that down!” Nettie said sharply, her voice thin with fear. “Right now, do you hear me?”

“He killed Rolo, Mama.” Thierry's his hands were shaking as he held the gun. “Can you believe it? A Tittletott killing a Wrightly, imagine that.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I should have known better than to have ever trusted a Tittletott.” His voice rose as he gestured with the gun.

“Thierry,” Sergeant Jimmy McCall said calmly. “Give me the gun, and we'll talk about this. If Brad killed Rolo we'll take him to jail, I promise you. He won't get away with this. You know me, Thierry. I wouldn't lie to you.” The fat police officer in his tight uniform and sweat stains spreading across his back should have looked ludicrous, but Jimmy McCall was anything but ludicrous. His voice was calm and soft, as if coaxing a wild dog from a burning building.

“Ha!” Thierry jeered. “You expect me to believe that a Tittletott can't get away with murder on this island? They've been doing it for centuries.”

Sabrina raised her head in surprise. Had Thierry read the diary?

All this time Brad had been standing quietly, his head bowed as if accepting whatever fate was meted out to him. He looked up then, and Sabrina realized that Brad, at least, knew about the diary. She could see the recognition in his eyes.

“I didn't kill Rolo,” Brad said, but his voice was defeated, and he didn't sound convincing.

“Yes, you did,” Thierry cried. “I saw you put the note under the door that night! I was coming back from the Pub, real late, and I saw you in front of Nettie's Cookie Shop, looking around as if you didn't want anyone to see you. Then you put the note under the door. I saw you! Rolo met you at the treasure tree and you killed him! I know you killed him!”

“No, no.” Brad was shaking his head. “I didn't kill him, I swear I didn't.”

“Then where were you the day of the murder?” Thierry asked in a hard voice.

“Yeah,” someone shouted from the crowd. “Where were you, Brad Tittletott? You weren't at the Lighthouse Beach, we all know that. So where were you?”

Brad was shaking his head, back and forth like a metronome.

“What's more,” a rotund lady said as she stepped out of the crowd, “I saw ‘im that day, plain as day. I didn't want to say nothing, because I wasn't sure, but I know I saw him coming down the street, down in Waver Town, hat pulled low, and he had mud on his boots. He thought nobody knew who he was, but I sawed him.”

Brad stopped shaking his head, and was staring straight ahead, his eyes unseeing.

“Well, Brad,” Jimmy asked. “Did you arrange to meet Rolo at the treasure tree? We have a sample of your handwriting, remember. If you wrote the note, we'll find out soon enough.” Jimmy was now standing next to Thierry, facing Brad. Jimmy had assessed the situation, it was plain, and saw that Thierry was so wrapped up in the public spectacle that he had let the gun drop to his side. Jimmy was in easy reach of the gun if Thierry raised it again.

Brad shut his eyes.

“He was with me! He didn't kill Rolo! He was with me!” Stacey Tubbs, looking very young in a white dress, her hair tied in a pony tail at the back of her neck, stepped forward out of the crowd to stand at Brad's side.

“Stacey!” Greg Tubbs, heavy chins swinging, stared in disbelief at his daughter.

“He was.” Stacey slipped her arm through Brad's.

“No, Stacey,” Brad said, almost inaudibly.

“We've been together for over a month now. And the day Rolo was murdered we were at my house. Mummy and Daddy were at the store. We were there all day. In bed.” She looked around at the faces of her family and friends, as if determined to share every nitty-gritty detail now that the truth was out in the open.

“No, Stacey,” Brad said in a louder voice. “I don't want you lying for me.” He took the girl by the shoulders and moved her away, out of the possible track of a bullet. “I wasn't with Stacey all afternoon, though we were together earlier in the afternoon. I love her,” he said simply, and Stacey glowed with happiness. “But I left to go meet Rolo at two. I did send him the note asking him to meet me at the tree. Thierry was right about that. But I didn't go to kill him. I went to tell him that—” he broke off, looking around at the curious, concerned faces of those around him. “I went to tell him that I would tell everyone the truth the night of the rally. That I would tell what really happened the night the silver was stolen.”

There was an excited murmur of voices, and a shifting of the crowd as people pushed closer to Brad so they could hear.

“When Rolo first got back to the island, we met and he swore that he would tell everybody about the Tittletotts, and what I did that night. He was so angry. I think he must have kept the anger bottled up for all these years. There was something about me running for president that really set him off. I'm not sure why, but that made him angrier than anything else.” Brad grew more confident, and his voice strengthened.

“I asked him not to, told him I would give him money to go away, that I was sorry, but that I couldn't give up my whole life for him.” Brad laughed, a harsh cynical sound. “I won't repeat what he said. I left then, and he swore the truth would come out. I asked who would believe him?

“But over the next couple of days, I couldn't get him out of my mind. I knew he was still around, and I found myself wanting to talk to him, like we used to when we were kids. We use to tell each other everything. He was the best friend I ever had. I wanted to tell him about Stacey, and my campaign, all the things I had done over the past fifteen years. I think that's when I realized how wrong I had been, and how much I wanted to make it all up to Rolo. So I left him the note at Nettie's shop, and asked him to meet me at the treasure tree. The next day, I went to see Stacey and then I went to the marsh and saw Rolo. I told him it was all over, that I would tell everything at the rally that night. He didn't believe me at first, but I convinced him. He planned to go to the rally anyway, and we agreed that he would meet me there, and I would tell what happened.

“We—we made up, in a way. I think in time we could have been friends again. When I left the clearing at the treasure tree he was still there, sitting on one of the old bus seats, and smiling. I swear he was still alive when I left. And that night at the rally, I was going to tell the truth, I was, but Dock came in covered with blood. Then when I found out Rolo was killed, I couldn't say anything, because I knew everybody would think I killed him to stop him from telling what happened.” Brad stopped, his chest heaving with his emotion. There was silence except for Brad's gasping breaths, almost as if he was breathing for the entire group.

Jimmy McCall broke the spell. “What really happened that night?” he asked quietly. “Fifteen years ago, you and your mother said Rolo told you he stole the silver, and when we went to his house it was in his closet. What really happened?”

“I stole it,” Brad said, and the sun went behind a cloud, and shadows rippled across the blowing grass. “Rolo and I were always playing jokes on each other. Not just on each other, on the whole island too, I know. But we played them on each other as well. Rolo—Rolo had gotten it in his head that Walk-the-Plank Wrightly's treasure was buried somewhere in the marsh around the treasure tree. He had a map that he said proved the treasure was buried there, somewhere.”

Brad paused, and his eyes sought out Dock. Dock, who had given the diary to Rolo and pledged him to secrecy. And Rolo, young and trusting, had told his best friend Brad, who just happened to be a Tittletott. Dock returned Brad's stare stonily.

“We dug for it. We dug holes until our fingers bled from the blisters, but we couldn't find it. So one day, I was over at Edie Lowry's house. I was delivering a note from my mother, and Edie was polishing her silver. And it occurred to me, what if I planted treasure for Rolo to find? Wouldn't that be a hoot? That night, when I stole the silver, I didn't know Edie was in the house, I thought she had gone to my mother's Oyster Cram party. And of course everyone knew Edie's husband was out to sea. I swear I didn't know she was there until I looked up and she was standing in the doorway. It was dark, and I didn't think she could see me, so I jumped up. She backed away from me until she was standing at the top of the stairs leading outside. I pushed by her, not hard, just trying to get by her. I guess she fell. I was running so fast I didn't realize that she had fallen until the next day. I buried the silver, and Rolo and I went later that night to dig for the treasure, and he found the silver. He was excited, he really thought it was Walk-the-Plank's silver! I was going to tell him eventually, and put back Edie's silver, but I wanted the joke to last a little longer. Rolo took the silver and I went home. The next morning I heard about Edie's fall and that her house had caught on fire. And then someone called and blamed the whole thing on me! I swear I didn't set Edie's house on fire. It must have been an accident. I didn't do it. All I could think was that Rolo had found out I tricked him, and had made that phone call. I felt so horrible about it, but I was so young…I didn't know what to do.” Brad looked up and locked eyes with Elizabeth Tittletott. Her eyes were narrow, and two spots of color flared high on her cheekbones. Brad turned away. “I was scared. I was stupid. I told the sergeant that Rolo did it. I'll live with that mistake the rest of my life.”

Stacey had slipped to Brad's side again, and he didn't protest as she took his arm. He stared at the ground now, his posture defeated. Around him voices broke out in excited conversation.

“I'll just need to get an official statement, Brad.” Sergeant Jimmy McCall reached over and took Thierry's gun. Thierry didn't protest as he stared at Brad in bewilderment.

Sabrina took the opportunity to make her way through the crowd to Brad.

“One question,” she said in a quiet voice, and Brad looked at her in surprise.

“Did Rolo threaten anything else? Weren't you just as worried about the Tittletott deed as you were about your reputation?”

Brad looked over at Stacey who was arguing with her father. “I'm not going to even ask how you know about that,” he said in a low voice. “Yes, Rolo had proof that the Wrightlys were the rightful owners of all the Tittletott land. He told me about the pirate's diary years ago, when we were kids. Back then I told him that when I got control of the Tittletott property I would give back half to the Wrightlys.” He smiled and shook his head. “Kids are so idealistic, aren't they?”

“Why did Rolo decide to come forward now, though? The Wrightlys have had this information for three hundred years.”

“A lot of people live on Tittletott land—including most of the extended Wrightly clan. The piece of land with your cottage and the New Wrightly House is on Wrightly land, but Nettie rents the cookie shop from us and a lot of Wavers have been renting from the Tittletotts for generations. The Wrightlys have been scared, plain and simple. If they challenged us and lost, they were afraid they would lose everything.” His face grew sadder. “Rolo hated me so much and was so angry that I was going to be president, he just didn't care anymore.

“That day at the rally, I was going to admit the truth about the silver. Rolo promised if I did that he would keep quiet about the diary until my mother passed away. I asked him that favor, and God knows he didn't owe me anything, but he agreed. Since I'm the sole heir of the Tittletott property, I was going to start making over deeds into the Wrightlys' name. It was the only thing I could do.”

“You never saw the diary? You don't know what happened to it?”

Brad shook his head, and then Jimmy took him by the arm and led both Brad and Thierry down the hill.

“Ahem,” Nettie coughed. “This is still a funeral. I'm glad Bradford Tittletott saw his way clear to telling the truth about Rolo. Now all of you know that he really was a good boy.” Nettie turned to face the coffin. She placed the old wooden fishing pole she carried inside the coffin with Rolo, and leaned down to kiss his face. Then she lowered the coffin lid as Bicycle Bob moved forward with a shovel.

“One more thing.” Nettie gestured to Terry and little Nettie who picked up two potted rose bushes lying in the shade of a nearby bush and brought them to their grandmother. “Rolo loved his grandmama Lora's roses. These are from Lora's house and they'll be planted on his grave.”

Sabrina closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyelids. She was glad she remembered to tell Nettie what Rolo had said.